​Man Crush Monday: Dane DeHaan

What do Germany, Italy, and Wales have in common? All three countries are part of the origins and background of this week’s Man Crush, Dane DeHaan.

Dane was born in Pennsylvania in 1986 from the most interesting cultural mix. Since he was little, he showed an interest in acting, and his parents complied. In hindsight, this was definitely the right choice for Dane: his first job offer, for a role in the theater play American Buffalo, came early on when he was a teenager and was a great learning experience for him. After theater came TV: Dane had a role in one of the most popular series of the last decades, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and in another much-loved series, In Treatment.

Just like many artists who have gone through multiple phases in their careers, Dane has experimented with theater, TV, and finally and most importantly (and intensely), cinema. In 2012, he made his film debut with Chronicle and was also cast for Lawless. He subsequently was Ryan Gosling’s son in The Place Beyond the Pines and had various roles in drama movies such as Kill Your Darlings (with Daniel Radcliffe). Screenplays soon start flowing in his direction, and in 2014 Dane was cast in the incredibly successful The Amazing Spider-Man 2.

So much work, and indeed so much recognition: this year has been his most successful yet. In the much-awaited Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets by Luc Besson, which will be released at the end of the month, his co-stars are Cara Delevingne and Rihanna; he’s also been cast for the upcoming historical drama film Tulip Fever, starring also Alicia Vikander.

In between movies, Dane (whom many love to say is conceptual heir – and doppelgänger – of Leonardo DiCaprio) somehow finds time to relax and unwind. His idea of relax, though, does not involve stuff like massages or spending hours in a spa: he’d rather charge his batteries through manual activities such as chopping wood, or by exercising his green thumb.
In the meantime, he’s also found some time to marry his fiancée Anna Wood, and he became a father for the first time last March. And we thought Beyoncé was the only one to have more than 24 hours in a day!